The old woman with the giant Wests Tigers flag turned to my then seven-year-old son and said: ''Hey, kid, do you want to have a turn at waving the flag? I've been supporting the Tigers most of my life, and you never know when you'll get another chance.''

There are a lot of reasons Wests Tigers' 2005 premiership win was special, but it's hard to beat having cheered a team you like to see succeed with your son - and he's a lot more passionate a supporter than I am. After the Tigers won the 2003 World Sevens - a carnival-type pre-season tournament that was scrapped the following year due to a lack of interest from some clubs - I came home to find him in bed with his jersey on. ''I knew the Tigers would be a good team one day,'' he said.

Passing as a great ...Tigers superstar Benji Marshall sets up one of the most memorable grand final tries of all time when he flick passes to Pat Richards against the Cowboys. Photo: Brendan Esposito

Years earlier, my father and I had cheered for the Balmain Tigers as they won every match of the 1988 finals from a fifth-placed play-off against Penrith until the grand final, when an illegal tackle from Canterbury greats Terry Lamb and Andrew Farrar put star English five-eighth Ellery Hanley out of the game. It was heartbreaking stuff, as was the Tigers' extra-time loss to Canberra the following season.

But the Benji Marshall-inspired 30-16 defeat of North Queensland in the 2005 grand final made amends for all of that. The Tigers were the fairytale team of the finals, having won eight of their last 10 premiership matches to qualify for the play-offs for the first time since Balmain and Wests merged in 2000, and their brand of free-flowing, attacking football captured the imagination of most rugby league fans.

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With neither Wests or Balmain having won a premiership since the 1960s, success-starved fans came out of the woodwork, and the atmosphere at the Tigers' four finals matches rivalled that when Newcastle won the 1997 ARL grand final.

The game in which my son got to wave the Wests Tigers flag was the opening finals match, a crushing 50-6 defeat of the Cowboys that started a golden run to premiership glory for a team that had been quoted at odds of 150-1 to win the grand final at one stage during the season. After that they beat Brisbane 34-6 and premiership favourites St George Illawarra 20-12 to storm into the grand final.

The defining moment was the 35th-minute Pat Richards try that Marshall laid on after stepping Johnathan Thurston and Matt Sing in a 60-metre run from near the Tigers try line before delivering a spectacular flick pass to his unmarked winger as he committed Cowboys fullback Matt Bowen to tackle him.

The try, considered one of the greatest in grand final history, merely gave the Tigers a 12-6 half-time lead at the time but it effectively sealed a historic premiership win that released much emotion for the club's long-suffering fans and ensured a new generation of supporters.